Glass lenses to select a single coherent set of photons from a typically chaotic, photons-going-everywhere wave-front of light have been enormously effective. For example, a camera lens selects from said chaotic mess only the photons whose vector to the face of the lens at the point of incidence on that lens fits the current desired focus criteria. Other light, not fitting that criteria identified by the optics, is either less profound on the image plane (and thus overpowered by the preferred light) or selected out by spatial filtering altogether. This has been adequate for a world of applications that make up the very mature field of refractive optics.
However, transmissive-medium lenses also have many inherent disadvantages.
Light Loss: The surface reflects much light back to its source that we would like to go all the way to the viewer (ex. for shorter camera exposures and low-light photography)—at some peripheral angles of incidence there is more light that is reflected than is transmitted.
Transmissive Media Diffraction: Also there is diffraction or light scattering at the surface even with magnesium fluoride phase shifting reduction and, in even the best optics, as it passes through the medium. This, though clever optics like spatial filtering deals effectively with this, limits the ultimate resolution and purity of the image.
Tooling Precision Difficulties with Scale: Also, no optics are perfectly uniform which adds image aberrations. This becomes more of a problem as we try to make lenses much larger (such as large telescope lenses) or much smaller (because of the difficulties of tooling tiny lenses).
Coherency Limits: The very method used to warp light selectively limits the depth of field in cameras, glasses, contacts, etc. often leaving areas in front of or beyond the item focused upon “out of focus” This is also an issue with our own eyes that glass glasses do not help with.
Peripheral Vision in Corrective Optics: Glasses, because of their own limitations, do nothing to help the limited human peripheral vision and typically make it worse with the added limitations to field of view and near-edge optic aberration issues.
Peripheral Vision in Other Optics: Although a typical box-shaped camera could theoretically capture a 180 degree panorama, in practice when you look through the viewfinder of your camera, what you see comes closer to half of that because of the nature of the lenses (not usually being as good as you get closer to the edges), Brewster's angle (the substantial difference in transmissiveness between light incident normal to the surface of the lens versus light at incidences less normal to the glass surface (causing, if you try to capture too, much peripheral vision range with a typical convex lens, dimmer edges and brighter centers, etc.)
Limitations to 2-Dimensional imaging: A true 3-D solution has not been provided with traditional refractive or reflective optics.
Standard Parts Obstacles. It would be nice if you could buy a pair of glasses without having to go to an Optometrist and have a special set made just for you. It would also to be a lot cheaper, faster, and easier to replace. One optic that has met the “one-size-fits-all” need is the Stenopeic filter.
These reflect significant needs for improvement that have not been completely met by transmissive optics
The use of pinhole's for cleaning up light is well known and used in a wide array of optics. The depth of focus of the human eye can be increased with the use of ophthalmic lenses with pinhole-like apertures substantially near the optical center of the lens. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,976,732 discloses an ophthalmic lens with a pinhole-like aperture where a mask forms the pinhole-like aperture. In one embodiment, the mask is circular in shape. When the pupil is constricted, light enters the retina through the pinhole-like aperture. When the pupil is dilated, light enters the retina through the pinhole-like aperture and the outer edges of the mask.
Also, U.S. Pat. No. 3,794,414 discloses a contact lens with a pinhole-like aperture. Here, the mask forming the pinhole-like aperture has radial slits and/or scalloped edges. In addition, the mask forming the pinhole-like aperture is two spaced-apart concentric circles. However, the radial slits, scalloped edges and two spaced-apart concentric circles increase diffraction of light, which in turn reduces the contrast of the image.Also, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,955,904, 5,245,367, 5,757,458 and 5,786,883, various modifications to an ophthalmic lens with a pinhole-like aperture are documented. They describe the use of an optical power for vision correction in the pinhole-like aperture, or use of an optical power for vision correction in the area outside the mask. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,980,040, the mask is powered to bend the light passing through the mask to impinge on the retina at a radial distance outside of the fovea to defocus the light.Other devices have been studied for the improvement of distance vision. The ability of the eye to see distance more clearly with a relatively fixed small aperture is well known. Consequently, methods of correcting distance vision have been proposed that use pinholes devices or similar small aperture designs.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 3,794,414 to Wesley and U.S. Pat. No. 5,192,317 to Kalb attempt to correct distance vision by the provision of a relatively small aperture. These designs suffer from diffraction at the edge of a dark ring or masked area, which detracts from any improvement.
However, though many of the pinhole or light-slice based solutions provide limited fields of vision with sharper images, none of the aforementioned new technologies provide unobstructed clear natural vision with a full natural landscape. Stenopeic glasses, which are a spaced array of holes in a set of eyeglasses with otherwise opaque “lenses”. They have been used for some time to deal with myopia and other vision problems. These can't be used for driving etc. because of the confusing impression of looking through a spaced array of big holes. The holes have to be spaced as such because if they are moved closer together, the rays overlap and the effect is lost. They also provide poor peripheral vision.
They typically use 1 mm pinholes spaced out in an opaque plastic array to allow you to pick a single pinhole to look through. By looking through a single pinhole, the eye receives a “pencil” of light that has a lot less incident light coming from the sides, etc.
The interesting thing is that this allows users with a variety of widely disparate vision problems to see clearly through the chosen hole. Despite the crudeness of the “find a hole and peek through it” approach, this is extremely interesting. Thus, it is not necessary to have a prescription for them. “One size fits all”
However:                1. These can't be used for driving etc. because of the confusing impression of looking through a spaced array of big holes.        2. The pencil of light is itself partially corrupted        3. The pinholes have to be spaced significantly apart because the pencils' impurities overlap with too-near competition        4. Field of view is extremely limited, and peripheral vision is non-existent.        5. So much light is lost due to the required wide spacing that very good lighting is required.        6. As a practical matter, though initially promising due to their ability to improve vision with an “off-the-shelf” to “one-size-fits-all” optic, they are only usable when sitting still and reading in good light.        
The current invention overcomes the limitations of these corrective devices while also overcoming all of the aforementioned problems associated with transmissive optics.